Nitrate Factory

[tibbsy07]

So there are 2 sponges in the same tank - 1 from an established AC50 that is getting passive diffusion of water and a sponge from a 10g tank that is getting water pumped through via an air stone?

 

Also, do you have lights on in the tanks?

[Subsea]

This is an exterior south porch with 4mil 50% light transmission poly film on outside of screen.

 

Yes, on the two sponges.

[tibbsy07]

Here are the results from the water testing you sent in. I did not upload the actual images of the pdf as they were a pain, so I compiled your information with the test results in Excel and am linking it here.

 

Note: The 0.1 ppm readings are the limit of detection, meaning that it's as low as they can test for so anything here listed at 0.1 ppm means that it might be lower than that. We have to label it as such, though. Also note: AmmoniUM (NH4) is not the same as AmmoniA (NH3). Close, but technically different readings.

 

Live rock rubble is in the lead. It has processed a good amount of ammonia and has resulted in low nitrates, as well as what seems to be decent denitrification (N₂ reading) - it depends on how they actually tested for nitrogen. Nitrites are a bit high but that could simply be that the water sample was taken in the middle of the ammonia oxidation to nitrite and subsequent oxidation to nitrate.

 

Live rock is next, which makes sense given that rubble is in first. Rubble has a LOT of surface area that is exposed to oxygen (a requirement for nitrification), but chunk rock is almost as good.

 

Sponge bob is doing pretty well. I'm not surprised given that both sponges in the tank came from previously established tanks, meaning they are ready to go. I assume there is no sand in those tanks? Sponges also provide decent surface area and plenty of water flow.

 

One concerning thing is the fact that the ceramic rock is processing less than the control tank. I'm not sure how that could be the case.

 

Another point of note: the bacteria involved in processing ammonia to nitrate are extremely sensitive to light and UV - in fact, I've been reading and it seems that (I was totally incorrect about this, by the way), they do not grow on ALL surfaces in a tank. The UV from light pretty much kills them on any surface including glass, rear walls, plastic, powerheads, etc. They only exist in the substrate where the light can't get to them. The tanks might be processing differently if they are in different light situations.

[Subsea]

All tanks have the same light conditions. During initial start up, I noted that ceramic rock contributed some ammonia to tank. This rock was manufactured by my apprentice. She is unsure of the clay chemistry. I will drop this tank from the study.

 

Due to a modem failure, I am without internet until tomorrow.

Patrick

[Subsea]

Tibbsy,

 

You are correct about tank #8. It is processing nitrate thru photosynthesis. The water is turning green like a phytoplankton culture. It gets slightly more natural sunlight due to its position on the porch.

 

I sent an attachment, using my PC, with a spreadsheet of all raw data to date. However, I could not view it on my iPad. Your computer skills will triumph, I am sure.

 

As I indicated a week ago, the trend of increasing ammonia processing by Sponge Bob and rock rubble has doubled over the two nearest competitors, oolite sand and coarse substrate.

 

As of 2100hrs last night: Total ammonia added, ml Daily dose, ml

1. Coarse substrate 112. 4

2. Oolite sand. 82. 4

3. Bio balls. 142. 16

4. Sponge Bob. 216. 32

5. Ceramic rock. 48. 0

6. Live rock. 180. 16

7. Rock rubble. 272. 36

8. Control tank. 66. 4

 

PS. SORRY. The numbers do not stay in the column, in the manner that I posted them. If a moderator would clean it up, I thank you in advance,

Patrick

[tibbsy07]

Tibbsy,

 

You are correct about tank #8. It is processing nitrate thru photosynthesis. The water is turning green like a phytoplankton culture. It gets slightly more natural sunlight due to its position on the porch.

 

I sent an attachment, using my PC, with a spreadsheet of all raw data to date. However, I could not view it on my iPad. Your computer skills will triumph, I am sure.

 

As I indicated a week ago, the trend of increasing ammonia processing by Sponge Bob and rock rubble has doubled over the two nearest competitors, oolite sand and coarse substrate.

 

As of 2100hrs last night: Total ammonia added, ml Daily dose, ml

1. Coarse substrate 112. 4

2. Oolite sand. 82. 4

3. Bio balls. 142. 16

4. Sponge Bob. 216. 32

5. Ceramic rock. 48. 0

6. Live rock. 180. 16

7. Rock rubble. 272. 36

8. Control tank. 66. 4

 

PS. SORRY. The numbers do not stay in the column, in the manner that I posted them. If a moderator would clean it up, I thank you in advance,

Patrick

Did you mean nearest competitors in terms of actual location of the tanks or did you mean nearest competitors in terms of ammonia processing? Live Rock is closest to Sponge Bob and Rubble, followed by bio balls in terms of the latter.

[Subsea]

In terms of present trend, Sponge Bob is processing twice the daily dose of ammonia as live rock and has exceeded live rock in total ammonia processed. If I had succeeded in attaching spreadsheets for daily dosing, it would have been apparent. I will get them to you Saturday, when I get some application help. While not as dramatic, I expect bio balls to exceed live rock in ammonia processing. To me this is not possible, but it is happening.

Stay with me. Thank you again for the contribution.

Patrick

[Subsea]

Too much multi tasking. This will be the last week of biofiltration study. In general, Sponge Bob and bioballs are the big surprise. I feel that coarse substrate and oolite sand made a poor showing due to micro algae and lack of advective circulation.

 

As of today, these are the measured readings:

 

1. Coarse substrate has processed 144 ml of ammonia. NH4 at 4ppm and NO4 at 100ppm

2. Oolite sand has processed 106 ml of ammonia. NH4 at 8ppm and NO4 at 150ppm

3. Bio balls have processed 263 ml of ammonia. NH4 at 8ppm and NO4 at 10ppm

4. Sponge Bob has processed 276 ml of ammonia. NH4 at less than .5 ppm and NO4 at 5 ppm

5. Home made ceramic rock is removed from study due to substandard showing.

6. Live Rock has processed 252 ml of ammonia. NH4 at .5 ppm and NO4 at 20 ppm

7. Rock rubble has processed 445 ml of ammonia. NH4 at .5 ppm and NO4 at <5 ppm

8. Control tank has processed 80 ml of ammonia. NH4 at 4 ppm and NO4 at 150 ppm.

[Subsea]

I will be out of pocket for a few hours. The University of Texas Marine Bioscience Department Head along with the Curator for Marine Algae and Purchasing are touring Aquaculture Ranch this evening. When talking with Doctor Brand, I jokingly asked him what was the Board of Regents going to think about Longhorns buying algae from a Cajun Aggie. He laughed and said, "they will need to get a sense of humor".

Laissez la bonne temps roulee,

Patrick

[Subsea]

Food for thought.

 

This is a recent video of my 12 year old set up: 75G Jaubert Plenumn of top with a 30G mud/macro on bottom. Lights are provided by 6' of BML at 12K reef spectrum.

Laissez la bonne temps roulee,

Patrick

 

[Subsea]

I moved the 1 pound of bioballs and 10 pounds of rock rubble from study tanks to my 30G mud/macro refugium. I removed the macro from this refugium and increased macro in 75G Jaubert Plenum display tank shown in the video.. Macro in refugium was doing the job but the heat from the power compact lights was undesirable.

Patrick

[Subsea]

For what it's worth, a few of my thoughts on the subject.

 

In recent years the notion that denitrification occurs only in slow flow, anoxic regions has been refuted. Nitrification/denitrification occurs efficiently in any location where aerobic and anerobic conditions occur in close proximity. A good example is a relatively shallow, relatively 'clean' aragonite sand bed where the sand grain's micro pores allow anerobic bacteria to reside in very close proximity to aerobic ones.

 

Live rock rubble can initially be quite effective at this task due to it's large surface area and capacity to harbor aerobic and anerobic micro sites, but at issue is the fact that it clogs easily with detritus due to settling and advection. Once this happens, the nitrification/denitrification process becomes severely impeded due to lack of flow into the rubble's interior spaces and as a result nitrates build up in the water column.

 

Nano,

Thank you for your thoughts on nitrification/denitrification occurring in close proximity of each other. On post #54 you referenced Reef Aquarium V3. It helped me understand how bioballs could process nitrate without obvious reducing oxygen conditions required by denitrification bacteria.

 

https://www.princeton.edu/nitrogen/publications/pdfs/Ward_1996_Probing.pdf

 

This 15 page article further clarifies the point.

Patrick

[Nano sapiens]

Nano,

Thank you for your thoughts on nitrification/denitrification occurring in close proximity of each other. On post #54 you referenced Reef Aquarium V3. It helped me understand how bioballs could process nitrate without any apparent anaerobic bacteria.

 

https://www.princeton.edu/nitrogen/publications/pdfs/Ward_1996_Probing.pdf

 

This 15 page article further clarifies the point.

Patrick

 

YW. Glad to contribute.

[Subsea]

http://eawag-bbd.ethz.ch/nit/nit_map.html

 

This link discribes the anammox pathway which was not discovered until the 1990's. It accounts for 50% of free nitrogen gas in the athmosphere.

[Subsea]

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/3/aafeature

 

Advanced Aquaria Feature Article in March 2011

Feature Article: Bacterial Counts in Reef Aquarium Water: Baseline Values and Modulation by Carbon Dosing, Protein Skimming, and Granular Activated Carbon Filtration
By Ken S. Feldman, Allison A. Place, Sanjay Joshi, Gary White
What are the bacteria populations in the water column of reef tanks, and how does that value compare with bacterial counts in authentic reef water? Does carbon dosing indeed increase water column bacteria populations (i.e., is growth carbon limited)? Does mechanical filtration (protein skimming and/or GAC filtration) actually remove bacteria from the water column, and if so, how much? Ken, Allison, Sanjay, and Gary's in-depth article puts these questions to the test.


CONTENTS
1. Introduction
1.1 The goal of our study - testing the validity of the Carbon Dosing hypothesis
1.2 Bacteria: A general introduction
Bacterial Physiology
Bacterial Surface Charge and Protein Skimming
1.3 Bacterial life processes
Bacterial Metabolism
Bacterial Growth
Bacterial Nutrients
Manipulating Bacterial Growth
The Coral Holobiont
"Probiotic" Application of Bacteria
1.4 Counting bacteria in the water column
2. Experimental Approach
2.1 General experimental
2.2 Control experiments and bacterial contamination
2.3 Data workup
3. Results and Discussion
3.1 Baseline bacteria counts
3.2 Carbon dosing (planned and inadvertent) - How does it affect water column bacteria levels?
3.3 Bacteria removal via mechanical filtration - how effective?
4. Conclusions
5. Acknowledgments
6. References
Departments of Chemistry (Ken S. Feldman, Allison A. Place) and Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (Sanjay Joshi), The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802,

In the introduction, results from previous scientific articles about TOC are summarized and referenced below.
Patrick

Our earlier research on the topic of carbon nutrient levels in marine aquaria (Feldman, 2008; Feldman, 2009; Feldman, 2010) has provided experimental documentation for four conclusions that impact on TOC management in our reef tanks:

Reef aquaria utilizing active filtration (GAC, skimming) maintain equilibrium TOC levels within the range found on healthy tropical reefs.
Protein skimming (i.e., bubbles) is not very effective at removing TOC from aquarium water, depleting typical reef tank water of only ~ 20 - 35% of the post-feeding TOC present.
GAC filtration is quite effective at stripping reef tank water of its TOC load, removing 60 - 85% of the TOC present.
And, quite intriguingly, the natural biological filtration, which starts with bacteria and other microbes, is remarkable in its capacity to remediate reef tank water of TOC, easily removing 50% or more of the post-feeding TOC increase in tank water.
Conclusions (2) and (3) describe the consequences of mechanical filtration on TOC levels, but the 4th conclusion emphasizes the importance of the "hidden" part of the remediation equation, bacterial predation, for gaining an understanding of the dynamics of carbon commerce in our aquaria. In fact, this observation, coupled with the advent of Carbon Dosing strategies for nutrient export, led to a new series of questions regarding the perhaps pivotal role of bacteria, or at least skimmable water column bacteria, in successful reef aquarium husbandry.

For my natural systems I focus on the fourth conclusion of this earlier study. It emphasises the hidden part of the dynamic processes, bacteria predation. The predation of bacteria happens on many levels. I focus on filter feeders and corals which are active consumers of bacteria. Lowering nitrate and phosphate is not an issue in my extablished system. My inexpensive test kit can not find any levels of these two nutrients but I know that they are there by the growth of macro algae. I have sent samples off to be tested at agriculture test labarotories with levels that were not dected at the level of their test procedures. Even without this documentation, I know that nitrates and phosphate are in the tank. Otherwise corals, macro algae and bacteria populations would all decline.
I am all for contributing to the healthy growth of bacteria populations. Without healthy bacteria populations, the Martians in War of the Worlds would not have been defeated and earth as we know it would cease to exist. While the reference to the Martians is an attempt at satire, the second part to the sentence is that healthy bacteria populations are mandatory for biological life to exist on earth. Considering that nitrate and phosphate reduction is not required, I do not need to export the bacteria which reduces nitrate and phosphate. For my purposes, protein skimming is counter productive. The Feldman experiments support Paul's statement that bacteria in the water column will reproduce as fast as the skimmer removes them. His last statement at the end of the scientific paper questions the long term health of corals in our captive ecosystems due to skewed populations effecting diversity. He ends with the conclusion that more test are required.

[Sabbath]

Where the test media run submersed or in a Trickle Filter?

[Subsea]

Bioballs were submerged with passive circulation from air bubbles.

Patrick